The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Fifth Lecture

[ 1 ] I have spoken to you of the powers of the Sibyls; I have pointed out that we see these Sibyls emerge like the shadows of the Greek philosophers in Ionia, that over the centuries they sometimes conjured profound wisdom from their chaotic inner lives, and at other times brought only spiritual chaos to light, and that over the centuries they dominated the spiritual life of Southern Europe and the neighboring regions far more than external history is willing to admit. What I meant to say is that this peculiar expression of the Sibyls’ souls points, in general, to a certain power of the human soul that had its positive significance in earlier times, even in the third post-Atlantean cultural epoch. But cultural epochs change in the course of humanity’s historical development. The forces with which the Sibyls then temporarily brought forth utter nonsense were still entirely just and good soul forces in the third post-Atlantean epoch, when astrology was practiced, when the wisdom of the stars worked its way into human souls, and when, through the influence of this wisdom, the forces that later emerged chaotically in the Sibylline tradition were harmonized. From this, however, you can infer that forces at work anywhere in the world—for example, specifically those at work in the souls of the Sibyls right now—can never in and of themselves be called good or bad, but rather that they are good or bad depending on where and when they occur. These are certainly good, legitimate forces that arose in the souls of the Sibyls; they were simply not suited to the soul development of the fourth post-Atlantean epoch. In that epoch, the forces that should have prevailed in human souls were not those arising from subconscious motives, but rather those that spoke to the souls through the clarity of the I. Yesterday we heard how the ancient Hebrew prophets worked, as it were, toward the suppression of the Sibylline forces and the development of the forces that speak through the clarity of the ego; indeed, that it is precisely the essential characteristic of ancient Hebrew prophecy to push back the chaotic Sibylline forces and bring forth that which can speak through the ego.

[ 2 ] The fulfillment of what the ancient Hebrew prophets sought—what we might describe as a kind of “setting the Sibylline forces on the right track”—came about through the Christ impulse. When the Christ impulse struck the earthly development of humanity in the manner we know, the point was that for a time these forces, which had been emerging in a chaotic manner through the Sibyls, were pushed back—just as a river is pushed back by the outside world when it first flows there and then disappears into an underground cave, only to resurface later. In a different form—the form purified by the Christ impulse, the form that the Christ impulse could give to these forces after it had struck the Earth’s aura—these forces were to emerge again. Just as we must, after having fully developed our soul forces during the day, plunge them into the subconscious of the night, only to awaken again, so it was necessary that these forces, which were legitimate in the third post-Atlantean cultural epoch, flow, as it were, a little beneath the surface of soul life, unnoticed, only to emerge again, slowly, as we shall hear, to emerge again. We shall thus have before us the phenomenon that the forces which express themselves so chaotically in the Sibyls—and which are legitimate human forces—are, as it were, permeated by the Christ impulse, but that they sink down into the depths of the soul life, and that humanity, in its ordinary consciousness, knows nothing of the fact that Christ continues to work with these forces in the depths of the soul. And so it is indeed.

[ 3 ] From the perspective of Spiritual Science, it is a magnificent spectacle to observe the impact of this Christ impulse, to observe how, beginning with the Council of Nicaea, people quarrel in their conscious minds over the formulation of dogmas, how they strive with their consciousness, and how what is most important for Christianity takes place in the subconscious depths of the soul. The Christ impulse does not work where there is quarreling, but in the depths; and human wisdom will yet have to reveal many things that, if we consider them only on the surface, may seem strange to us. Much will yet have to be revealed, because it acts like a symptom of the work of the Christ impulse in the depths of human soul life. Thus we shall see or understand that the most important developments regarding the configuration of the Christian current in the West cannot come about through what the bishops quarrel about, but that important historical questions are determined by decisions that take place in the depths of the soul and emerge into consciousness, as it were, like dreams; so that people, from what they perceive in their dreams, cannot, as it were, unravel what is happening in the depths. And there are such things—I will mention just one symptom—where, as through dreams, what Christ is undertaking in the deep recesses of the soul is reflected, in order to set the human soul’s powers on the right track in the course of Western historical development.

[ 4 ] Perhaps it can touch some souls in such a way that they sense something of what I actually mean by these words, when we see that on October 28, 312, when Constantine Chlorus’s son, Constantine the Great, fought against Maxentius outside Rome and brought about a decision that was of immense importance for the entire Western world with regard to the configuration of Christianity, the battle and the victory came about in a remarkable way. This battle, my dear friends, which was fought before Rome by Constantine, the son of Constantius Chlorus, against his opponent Maxentius, was not decided by military orders, nor by the conscious acumen of the leaders, but it was decided by dreams and sibylline signs! And significantly, we are told of this battle, which took place on October 28, 312, that Maxentius, as Constantine advanced toward the gates of Rome, had a dream. The dream told him—while he was still within the gates—: “Do not remain where you are!” Under the influence of this dream, which was further reinforced by consulting the Sibylline Books for the prophecies of the Sibyls, Maxentius committed the greatest folly—from an external perspective—that he could have committed: He left Rome and fought the battle with his army, which was four times stronger than Constantine’s, not under the protection of Rome’s walls, but outside them. For the Sibylline Books stated: If you fight against Constantine outside the Roman walls, you will destroy Rome’s greatest enemy. — That was just one of those Sibylline oracles! Maxentius followed it, and indeed with courage and confidence, he went out before the gates of Rome. Just as another Sibylline oracle had once guided Croesus, so this one guided Maxentius. He destroyed Rome’s enemy—himself—through his undertaking.

[ 5 ] Constantine had a different dream. The dream told him: Lead your troops—which were not so large, being four times smaller than those of Maxentius—with the monogram of Christ! And he had it carried at the head of his forces, and he won the victory. A crucial decision for the configuration of Europe, determined by dreams and sibylline utterances! Here shimmers forth what is happening in the depths of the inner lives of the European people. Truly, like a river that has vanished into the caverns of the mountains, so that one cannot see it from above and can only surmise the most wondrous things, so the stream of the Christ impulse flows on in the depths of the souls of the European people and works, works at first as an occult fact.

[ 6 ] My dear friends, let me confess here that in my research in Spiritual Science, particularly when following this current, I have often, so to speak, lost track of it; for I had to search for where it reappeared. I could assume that the current of the Christ impulse appears only slowly, that even in our time it has not yet fully appeared, but can only begin to reveal itself. But where does it appear? That was the question. How does it rise up again? How does it resurface? Where does it first take hold of souls in such a way that they begin to bring something of it up into their consciousness? If you, my dear friends, follow my various discussions in books and cycles, and if you feel the same way I do about these discussions, then you will find that, particularly in the older parts of these discussions, what I have said in connection with the name of the Holy Grail is among the most unsatisfactory aspects. As I said, this is how I feel, and I hope that others have felt the same way. Not that I said anything that could not be sustained, but precisely when I put this forward, I felt unsatisfied. I had to offer what can certainly be offered; for often, when I sought that current of which I have just spoken in its further progress, when I sought the further occult Christian development of the West, then the admonition arose in my soul: You must first read the name of Parzival in its proper place. And I had to learn, my dear friends, that occult research is guided in a remarkable way. So that we are not tempted to fall into speculation and venture into realms where the imagination could very easily run away with the occult truth, we are guided for a long time—I would say, gently—in regard to occult research, if it is to ultimately bring the truth to light, a truth that can, through itself, impart to us a kind of conviction of its correctness. Thus I often had to resign myself to waiting for the answer to the demand: “Search where the name Parzival stands!”

[ 7 ] I had, my dear friends, taken to heart what you all know from the Parzival legend: that after Parzival returns, in a certain sense healed of his errors, and rediscovers the path to the Holy Grail, it is proclaimed to him there: his name had appeared shining on the Holy Grail. — So it must be written on this Holy Grail. But where is the Holy Grail, where is it to be found? — That was the question. One is often held back in such occult investigations, so that, I might say, one does not do too much in a day, in a year, lest one be driven beyond the truth by speculation: one is held back. Milestones appear. And so milestones have appeared to me in the course of the actually quite many years in which I sought an answer to the question: Where do you find the name of Parzival written on the Holy Grail?

[ 8 ] I knew that there were various meanings associated with the sacred chalice, which holds the host—that is, a wafer. And the word “Parzival” was supposed to be inscribed on the chalice itself. I also became aware of how profoundly significant a passage such as that in the Gospel of Mark, chapter 4, verses 11 and 12, 33 and 34, is, where it is said that the Lord spoke much in parables and only gradually explained the parables. In occult research, one is also guided—often solely in accordance with where karma leads one—very gradually and gently; and when something comes one’s way that seems to relate to a particular matter, one does not know what, under the influence of the forces coming from the spiritual world, is to be formed in one’s own soul from such a matter. One often does not even know that something one receives from the depths of the occult world relates to some problem one has been pursuing for years. So I didn’t really know what to make of it when I once asked the Norwegian folk spirit, the Nordic folk spirit, about Parzival, and he said: Learn to understand the word that has flowed through my power into the Nordic Parzival saga: “Ganganda greida”—roughly “the wandering refreshment”—something like that! I didn’t know what to make of it. And again, I didn’t know what to make of it when I once came out of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome under the impression of that work by Michelangelo that one finds immediately on the right, the Mother with Jesus, the Mother who still looks so young with the already dead Jesus in her lap. And under the aftereffect—that is a kind of guidance—of beholding this work of art, there came, not as a vision, but as a true imagination from the spiritual world, the image inscribed in the Akashic Records that shows us how Parzival, after leaving the Grail Castle for the first time—where he had not inquired about the mysteries that reign there—meets a young woman in the forest who holds the bridegroom in her lap and weeps for him. But I knew, my dear friends, that the image—whether it is the mother or the bride whose bridegroom has died—Christ is often called the bridegroom—had a meaning, and that the connection, which truly presented itself without my intervention, had a meaning.

[ 9 ] I could list many more such signs that have come to my attention in my search for the answer to the question: Where is the name Parzival written on the Holy Grail? For it must be written there; the legend itself tells us so. Now we need only recall the most important features of the Parzival legend.

[ 10 ] We know that Parzival was born to his mother Herzeleide after his father had left, and that his mother gave birth to him in a most unusual way, amid great pain and dreamlike visions. We know that she then wanted to shield him from knightly training and knightly virtues, that she had her estates managed by others and withdrew into solitude, that she wanted to raise the child in such a way that he remained distant from what was indeed alive within him; for the child was not to be exposed to the dangers to which his father had been exposed. But we also know that the child began early on to look up to all that is magnificent in nature, and that, in essence, the child learned nothing from his mother’s upbringing except that a God reigns—that the child then developed a tendency to serve this God. But it knew nothing of this God, and when it once encountered knights, it took these knights for God and fell to its knees before them. When the child then tells its mother that it has seen knights and wants to become a knight itself, the mother dresses it in a jester’s costume and sends it out. We know that the boy sets out, undergoes various adventures, and we know that the mother later—in what one might call a sentimental way, but which has the deepest meaning—dies of a broken heart over the disappearance of her son, who did not even give her a farewell greeting, turning back, and set out to experience knightly adventures. We know that after many wanderings, during which he learned much about knighthood and knightly virtue and distinguished himself, he arrives at the Castle of the Grail. I have mentioned on another occasion how we find the best literary depiction of Parzival’s approach to the Grail Castle in Chrestien de Troyes, in Christian von Troyes; how it is depicted there that, after having endured long wanderings, Parzival comes to a lonely region where he first finds two people: one is rowing a boat, the other is fishing from the boat; how, by asking these people, he is directed to the Fisher-King; how he then meets the Fisher-King in the Grail Castle. Further, how the Fisher-King, an elderly man who has grown frail and must therefore remain on his bed of rest, hands him the sword—a gift from his niece—during their conversation. Then, in the hall, a squire first appears carrying a spear that is bleeding—the blood runs down to the squire’s hand—and a maiden appears with the Holy Grail, which is like a kind of bowl. But such radiance shines forth from what is in the Grail that all the lights in the hall are outshone by the light of the Holy Grail, just as the stars are outshone by the sun and moon. And then we learn how it is that the old father of the Fisher King, who is in a separate room, is nourished by what is in this Holy Grail; he needs nothing of what is so abundantly served at the meal in which the Fisher King and also Parzival partake. They, however, are nourished by earthly food. But every time a new course is served—as we would say today—the Holy Grail passes once more into the chamber of the Fisher King’s father, who is old and who receives nourishment only from what is in the Grail. Parzival, who had been warned by Gurnemanz on the way there not to ask too many questions, does not ask why the lance is bleeding, does not ask what the Grail bowl signifies—he did not, of course, know its name. He was then—as Christian von Troyes relates—put to bed for the night in the very same room where all this had taken place. He had resolved to ask the next morning; but when he woke, he found the entire castle empty—no one was there. He called out for someone. No one was there. He dressed himself. Only his horse was waiting for him downstairs. He thought the company had ridden out on a hunt and wanted to follow them to inquire about the miracle of the Grail. But as he rode across the drawbridge, it shot up so quickly that the horse had to leap to save itself from falling into the castle moat. And he found no trace of the entire company he had found in the castle the day before. Then Chrétien de Troyes recounts how Parzival rides on and, in a lonely forest, finds the image of the woman with the man in her lap, whom she is weeping over. It is she who first tells him how he should have asked, how he has thus deprived himself of experiencing the effect of his questioning regarding the great mysteries that have come to him. We know from Christian von Troyes that he underwent many more trials and that, on Good Friday, he comes upon a hermit named Trevericent; we know that this hermit points out to him how he is being punished because he failed to bring about what could have served as a salvation for the Fisher King: to ask about the wonders of the castle. He then receives various teachings.

[ 11 ] Now, as I attempted to accompany Parzival to his hermit, a word was revealed to me—one that, as I must pronounce it according to Spiritual Science research, is not recorded anywhere, but which I believe I can assert with complete truth. A word made a deep impression on me, one that the old hermit had spoken to Parzival after he had, in the words he was able to use, drawn his attention to the Mystery of Golgotha, of which Parzival knew little, even though he had come on Good Friday. Then the old man spoke a word. He said—I am now speaking in words that are familiar to us, which are completely faithful only in meaning—: Remember what happened in connection with the Mystery of Golgotha! “Lift your gaze to Christ hanging on the cross, who spoke these words to John: ‘From this hour on, she is your mother’—and John did not forsake her. But you,” said the old man to Parzival, “you have forsaken your mother, Herzeleide. She left this world for your sake!” — Parzival did not understand the full context, but these were words spoken to him, I might say, with the spiritual intention that they might take effect in his soul as an image, so that he might find karmic balance for abandoning his mother precisely in the image of John, who does not abandon his mother. This was meant to have a lasting effect in his soul. Then we hear further how Parzival stays with the hermit for a short time and how he then seeks the path to the Holy Grail once more. It is then that he finds the Grail, shortly before or immediately before the death of the old Amfortas, the Fisher King. Then it is that the knighthood of the Holy Grail, the holy knighthood, comes to meet him with the words: Your name shines in the Grail! You are the future ruler, the King of the Grail, for your name has appeared shining from the Holy Grail! — Parzival becomes King of the Grail. So the name Parzival is inscribed on the holy, golden-shining chalice, in which there is a host. It is inscribed there.

[ 12 ] And now, since my aim was to find the bowl, I was initially led astray—led astray by a certain circumstance, my dear friends. It is—and I say this in all modesty, not to imply anything immodest—it has always seemed necessary to me in occult research not only to take into account what emerges directly from occult sources, but, when dealing with a serious problem, to take into account what external research has brought to light. And that is generally a good thing, it seems to me, if one does not neglect, in the pursuit of a problem, to truly conscientiously consult everything that exoteric scholarship has to say, so that one remains, so to speak, on the ground and does not lose oneself entirely in a cloud cuckoo land. It was here that this exoteric scholarship misled me. It was precisely through what it had brought to light that it initially—indeed, quite some time ago—led me astray from the right path; for from this exoteric research I could see that Wolfram von Eschenbach, when he began to compose his *Parzival*—so this exoteric research claims—made use, according to his own statements, of Chrestien de Troyes and a certain Kyot. This Kyot cannot be found by external exoteric research, and it therefore regards him as an invention of Wolfram von Eschenbach, as if Wolfram von Eschenbach had wanted to find yet another source for the many things he adds to what he finds in Chrestien de Troyes. At most, external scholarship is willing to concede that this Kyot was a copyist of the works of Chrestien de Troyes and that Wolfram von Eschenbach then expanded upon this very matter in a somewhat imaginative manner.

[ 13 ] You see where this external research must lead one. It must lead one to more or less abandon the path that leads through that Kyot, for external research actually regards it as an invention of Wolfram von Eschenbach. At the same time—and this, too, is a matter of karmic coincidence—when I had, so to speak, been led astray by external research, something else approached me. What approached me then, I would like to express it this way—I have, after all, described it often enough in my *Secret Science*, in cycles and so on: The post-Atlantean epochs, as they unfolded before the Mystery of Golgotha, before the fourth post-Atlantean epoch, reappear in a certain way after this epoch. So that, in a certain sense, the third post-Atlantean epoch first reappears in our fifth cultural epoch, the second will appear to us in the sixth, and the first epoch, that of the holy Rishis, will appear in the seventh cultural epoch, just as I have often described. It became increasingly clear to me—and this is the result of many years of research—that something is truly emerging in our era akin to a resurrection of the astrology of the third post-Atlantean epoch, now permeated by the Christ impulse. We must study the stars today in a different way than people did back then, but the language of the stars must once again become something that speaks to us. And lo and behold, in a strange way, this thought of the reappearance of the star script and that of the mystery of Parzival became associated, came together. So that I could no longer help but believe that the two have something to do with one another. Then, my dear friends, an image arose before my soul. The image came to me as I tried in my mind to accompany Parzival as he journeys once more from Trevericent to the Grail Castle. It is precisely this encounter with the hermit that Christian von Troyes depicts for us in a beautiful, heart-rending way. I would like to read you a short passage from this passage, describing how Parzival arrives at the hermit’s dwelling:

He lets his horse run free
And sighs from the depths of his heart,
For he feels guilty before God
And remorse gnaws at his heart.
Weeping, he makes his way through the forest,
But he stops before the hermitage,
Dismounts from his horse,
Lays down his armor on the ground —
And finds in a small chapel
The pious man. In his anguish
He sinks to his knees before him,
The tears glistening in his eyes,
Roll endlessly down his chin,
As, with childlike simplicity
He folds his hands before him.
“You who bestow comfort,
Hear my repentant confession:
For five years I was deluded by madness,
So that I lived without faith
And strove only for evil.”
“Tell me why you did this,
And pray to God that He may let you
One day join the blessed host.”
“I was once with the Fisher King;
I saw the spear, from whose steel
Blood drips. I saw the Grail
And failed to ask
What this blood signifies,
And what the Grail means.
From that day until now
I have been in deep spiritual distress.
Death would be far better for me!
And so I forgot our Lord
And remained far from His grace.”
“So tell me, what is your name?”
“I am known as Parzival.”
Then the old man sighs from the depths of his heart:
He is well aware of the name.
He speaks: “Suffering has wedded you,
To what you have done without knowing.”

[ 14 ] And then the conversations between the hermit and Parzival, which I mentioned just a moment ago, begin to unfold. And when I then tried to accompany Parzival in spirit as he set out again for the Grail after his stay with the hermit, it often seemed to me as if a light shone in my soul as he rode on day and night, and as he was surrendered to nature by day and to the stars by night, as if the writing of the stars had spoken into his unconscious, and as if this writing of the stars were merely a foretelling of what the holy knighthood, which came to meet him from the Grail, told him: “From the Holy Grail your name shines brightly.” But Parzival apparently knew not what to make of what appeared to him from the stars, for it remained in his unconscious, and therefore one cannot really interpret it, no matter how hard one tries to delve into it through Spiritual Science research.

[ 15 ] Then I tried once more to return to the Kyot, and lo and behold: one thing in particular that Wolfram von Eschenbach says about him made a deep impression on me, and I had to connect it with the “Ganganda greida.” It all came together on its own. I also had to connect it with the image of the woman holding the bridegroom—the dead one—in her womb. Once, when I came across this word spoken of Kyot without even looking for it. The word is: “er jach, ez hiez ein dinc der grâl”—he said, a thing was called the Grail. And then we are led by exoteric research itself to how he arrived at: er jach, ez hiez ein dinc der grâl. He received a book from Flegetanis in Spain. It is an astrological book. No doubt, one may say to oneself: Kyot is indeed the one who, inspired by Flegetanis—a man he calls Flegetanis and in whom, in a sense, something of the knowledge of the star script comes to life—inspired, that is, by this revived astrology, sees the thing called the Grail. Now I knew that Kyot must not be dismissed, that he is precisely uncovering an important clue when one conducts Spiritual Science research: that he has, at the very least, seen the Grail.

[ 16 ] So where is the Grail, which must be found today bearing the name of Parzival—where is it to be found? Well, you see, in the course of my research it has become clear to me that it must be sought in the language of the stars—the name, at least. And then one day—a day I must regard as particularly significant for me—it became clear to me where the gleaming golden bowl can be found in reality; first of all, in such a way that through it—where it expresses itself through its star-script symbol—we are led to the mystery of the Grail. And there I saw in the star script what anyone can see—only at first they do not find the secret of the matter. For one day it dawned on me, as I followed with inner vision the gleaming golden crescent moon when it appears in the sky such that the dark moon is faintly visible within it like a great disk, so that one sees outwardly and physically the gleaming golden moon — Ganganda greida, the passing wayfare — and within it the great Host, the dark disk, that which one does not see of the moon when one looks only superficially, that which one sees when one looks more closely. For then one sees the dark disk, and in wondrous letters of the occult script upon the crescent moon—the name Parzival! That, my dear friends, was the star writing for now. For indeed, seen in the right light, this reading of the star writing reveals to our hearts and minds something—if perhaps not yet everything—of the Parzival mystery, of the mystery of the Holy Grail. What I still have to briefly hint at regarding this, I will try to tell you tomorrow.